One Common Anti-Marijuana Argument Just Took a Blow

Drug use among U.S. teenagers this year is at or near the lowest recorded levels, according to the results of a federal survey released this week. Use of the most common illicit drug, marijuana, remained relatively flat — a trend that’s been more or less consistent since 2010 — and some drug reformers and marijuana legalization advocates celebrated the new data.

Cigarettes, alcohol, prescription pain killers, and synthetic marijuana use all continued to decline, according to the Monitoring the Future Survey, which is conducted by the University of Michigan and the National Institute on Drug Abuse and tracks more than 40,000 students in grades 8, 10 and 12. Since 1975, the survey has asked students about their substance use.